Lopez, 94, died Monday. Services were scheduled for Saturday at Fort Sam
Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio.

Lopez, who was born in Mission, won the nation's highest military honor
for his heroics during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. Officials say Lopez,
as a sergeant, single-handedly killed more than 100 German soldiers in one
skirmish to protect his unit.

Battle
of the Bulge
legend laid to rest

Carmina Danini and Jerry Needham Express-News Staff Writers

Former Army Sgt. José Mendoza Lopez, San Antonio's last Medal of Honor
recipient from World War II, was lauded Saturday as a soldier of uncommon
valor.

"He was a giant of a man and a patriot who demonstrated on the
battlefields of World War II that freedom is not free," Cornerstone
Church Pastor John Hagee said at a memorial service in the church's Vada S.
Hagee Prayer Chapel.

Lopez, 94, died of kidney cancer Monday.

In the foyer of the chapel, one of several large photographs on easels
showed Lopez receiving the Medal of Honor from Maj. Gen. James A. Van Fleet,
then commander of the U.S. Third Corps.

Lopez's funeral drew several Medal of Honor recipients, including
retired Army Col. Robert Howard of San Antonio, who received the medal in
Vietnam, and representatives from veterans organizations.

Hagee said Lopez's story is one of the greatest in U.S. military
history.

Wounded at Normandy on D-Day plus 1, the Mexican-born Lopez declined
treatment and evacuation to England to stay with his unit.

Mired in unrelenting combat during summer and fall 1944, he arrived in
Belgium for the battle that would change his life.

With no assistance, Lopez, then a private, wiped out an elite Nazi unit
at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge on Dec. 14, 1944.

By his engaging and killing more than 100 of the enemy, Lopez's Company
K of the 23rd Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division, survived the German attack.

After receiving the Medal of Honor four months later, Lopez was promoted
to sergeant.

"He made military history by killing more soldiers in a single
engagement — higher than Alvin York and Audie Murphy together," Hagee
said.

One of Lopez's sons-in-law, Guy Wickwire of San Antonio, told in a
letter read by Hagee how the elderly man cared for his wife, Emilia, who had
dementia, during the last three years of her life.

Already in fragile health himself, Lopez helped her bathe and dress, and
he took her to church.

Hagee recalled seeing Lopez, whom he said was like Superman, pushing his
wife's wheelchair.

"Superman was a 5-foot-5, 135-pound Hispanic sitting in the front
row of Cornerstone Church every Sunday," the pastor said. "This is a
man all of America needs to know about."

Emilia Lopez died in February 2004.

About 75 people gathered at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery for the
burial ceremony as the temperature hovered in the 90s.

Three soldiers on horseback accompanied the black steel caisson drawn by
two horses. It carried the flag-draped, wood-sheathed casket to the outdoor
pavilion where ceremonies were conducted.

The caisson at Fort Sam is used only for burial ceremonies involving
Medal of Honor winners and general officers.

"I've known him for 43 years," said retired Army Maj. Gen.
Alfred Valenzuela, who called Lopez "humble, focused and dedicated"
in comments at the gravesite.

"What a great hero, what a man, a great smile, very compassionate
and just had it right," Valenzuela said. "He just wanted to give
back to the community, and that he's done."

After a three-volley rifle salute by a military honor guard and the
sounding of taps, the family was presented the flag that had covered his
coffin.

One of his daughters said he was an anchor and guiding light for
generations — in the family and in the community.

"He never missed an opportunity to meet with young people, whether
it be in elementary school, high school, college or university," said
Beatrice Lopez Pedraza, a daughter who lives in Peru with her husband, who is
with the U.S. diplomatic corps. "My father was always very ready to share
his values with young people. He instilled in me a true love for this
country."

Said John Arocha, 72, a neighbor of Lopez for the past 45 years:
"He was a good man. You never heard him say a bad word about anybody. I
was in the military and used to ask his advice. He'd tell me, 'Just do your
best job and don't complain.'"

"José was a real gentleman," said Frank Perales, commander of
American GI Forum's Region 3. "A nicer person you would never meet. I
think that's what made him so unique."

SAN ANTONIO, May 22, 2005 — Brownsville native Jose Mendoza Lopez, the
oldest living Hispanic recipient of the Medal of Honor, was buried with full
military honors Saturday in San Antonio.

Lopez, 94, is well known throughout South Texas as a World War II hero
who single-handedly repelled German infantry forces advancing on his U.S. Army
unit near the start of the Battle of the Bulge.

"He was a great hero, a super guy and a super dad," said his
son John Lopez.

Jose Lopez died Monday in San Antonio, a few weeks after returning from
the hospital where he had been undergoing treatment for cancer that spread
from his kidneys.

His burial was a mark of closure for some, but his memory will live on
for generations in Brownsville, where a statue is modeled after him at the
Veterans International Bridge.

The statue, unveiled in January 2003, depicts a grizzled, battle-worn
soldier standing proudly above a plaque relating his heroic tale.

“I like it,” the sergeant told The Brownsville Herald during the
unveiling ceremony at the bridge. “It is very good, but the gun is not the
right one. I had the one you’d put in a tripod, a 30-caliber machine gun.”

On Dec. 17, 1944, Lopez, with the 23rd Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division,
fended off dozens of German troops and tanks trying to overrun his Company K
near Krinkelt, Belgium. He lugged his .30-caliber weapon, jumped into a
shallow hole and killed several German soldiers.

“I was doing my duty to stop the enemy,” Lopez recalled at the
ceremony. “They gave me credit for killing 100 enemies and somebody
recommended me for the Medal of Honor.”

His Medal of Honor citation states: “Sgt. Lopez’s gallantry and
intrepidity, on seemingly suicidal missions in which he killed at least 100 of
the enemy, were almost solely responsible for allowing Company K to avoid
being enveloped, to withdraw successfully and to give other forces coming up
in support time to build a line which repelled the enemy drive.”

Nearly 50 years after the battle, he returned to the site in Belgium
with journalist Bill Moyers and a PBS documentary film crew. Questioned by
Moyers about his bravery, the man who had prayed to the Virgin of Guadalupe as
he fired at Germans replied, "I believe any man would do the same
thing."

Though his medal citation and most biographies list his birthplace as
Mission, Jose Lopez was born in Santiago Huitlan, Mexico. To join the Merchant
Marine, he bought a false birth certificate in 1935.

Returning to the United States from Hawaii after the Dec. 7, 1941,
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he almost was arrested. Authorities thought
he was Japanese.

"I let them see my papers, that I was Mexican, and they let me go.
They were going to put me in the prison," he told an interviewer for the
U.S. Latinos and Latinas & World War II oral history project.

In 1942, Lopez enlisted in the Army. He received a minor wound but
rejoined his unit after being treated.

Lopez also was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. But his
Medal of Honor was what he cherished most among his many mementos.

His son reflected Monday on a man who lived a humble life.

"He was a hero, without being a hero around his family," John
Lopez said.

Last Sunday, Jose Lopez had enough strength to squeeze relatives’
hands as they spoke to him, said June Pedraza, a granddaughter. Monday, he was
unresponsive, she said.